Allison's Profile
Allison
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Allison said:
"It's the holidays, so why not read a dense compendium on Scottish literature? I have to fill my free time with something irascibly nerdy to make up for not painting for 23094823408 hours, after all."
progress:
(page 19 of 831)
"So, I didn't want to finish the introduction last night. That's a pretty good sign, especially given how dense this thing is." — Dec 16, 2011 08:40am
"So, I didn't want to finish the introduction last night. That's a pretty good sign, especially given how dense this thing is." — Dec 16, 2011 08:40am
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Allison
is on page 19 of 831 of Scotland's Books: So, I didn't want to finish the introduction last night. That's a pretty good sign, especially given how dense this thing is.
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Allison
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| It's the holidays, so why not read a dense compendium on Scottish literature? I have to fill my free time with something irascibly nerdy to make up for not painting for 23094823408 hours, after all. | |
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| I feel as if Nine Stories fills in a lot of the blanks that most of Salinger's main oeuvre (read: Franny and Zooey) leaves behind. Chief of which is "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," the first of Nine Stories, well, nine stories, wherein Salinger gives...more | |
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Allison
is on page 19 of 198 of Nine Stories: I finally found out about Seymour. Hell, I read Seymour in action. I FEEL AS IF I ALREADY GOT WHAT I CAME FOR!
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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Aug 31, 2011 06:44pm
· all of Allison's favorite authors
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Raise high the roof beam, carpenters ; and, Seymour: An introduction
by J.D. Salinger
read in August, 2011
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| Allow me to address the chronology: this was one of those books where Life happened somewhere in the middle of it. I'm not usually the sort to leave books in the middle but rather prefer to be a bit of a binge reader who sits down to one sitting or t...more | |
"for there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes."
—
Milan Kundera
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![The Official Guide to the GRE Revised General Test [With CDROM] by Educational Testing Service](http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1285384261s/6661663.jpg "The Official Guide to the GRE Revised General Test [With CDROM] by Educational Testing Service")
The Official Guide to the GRE Revised General Test [With CDROM]
by Educational Testing Service
read in August, 2011
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| I'll be honest, as there's not much to say: this book does what it does. The end. | |
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”
― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad/Roughing It
― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad/Roughing It
“The hardest bones, containing the richest marrow, can be conquered only by a united crushing of all the teeth of all dogs. That of course is only a figure of speech and exaggerated; if all teeth were but ready they would not need even to bite, the bones would crack themselves and the marrow would be freely accessible to the feeblest of dogs. If I remain faithful to this metaphor, then the goal of my aims, my questions, my inquiries, appears monstrous, it is true. For I want to compel all dogs thus to assemble together, I want the bones to crack open under the pressure of their collective preparedness, and then I want to dismiss them to the ordinary life they love, while all by myself, quite alone, I lap up the marrow. That sounds monstrous, almost as if I wanted to feed on the marrow, not merely of bone, but of the whole canine race itself. But it is only a metaphor. The marrow that I am discussing here is no food; on the contrary, it is a poison.”
― Franz Kafka, Investigations of a Dog
― Franz Kafka, Investigations of a Dog
“Well, I know," she said. "You'll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you'll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we'll have a lot more of them. And they'll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs."
So then I understood. It was war that made her so angry. She didn't want her babies or anybody else's babies killed in wars. And she thought wars were partly encouraged by books and movies.
So I held up my right hand and I made her a promise: "Mary," I said, "I don't think this book of mine will ever be finished. I must have written five thousand pages by now, and thrown them all away. If I ever do finish it, though, I give you my word of honor: there won't be a part for Frank Sinatra or John Wayne.
"I tell you what," I said, "I'll call it 'The Children's Crusade.'"
She was my friend after that.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five
So then I understood. It was war that made her so angry. She didn't want her babies or anybody else's babies killed in wars. And she thought wars were partly encouraged by books and movies.
So I held up my right hand and I made her a promise: "Mary," I said, "I don't think this book of mine will ever be finished. I must have written five thousand pages by now, and thrown them all away. If I ever do finish it, though, I give you my word of honor: there won't be a part for Frank Sinatra or John Wayne.
"I tell you what," I said, "I'll call it 'The Children's Crusade.'"
She was my friend after that.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five
“In the political jargon of those days, the word "intellectual" was an insult. It indicated someone who did not understand life and was cut off from the people. All the Communists who were hanged at the time by other Communists were awarded such abuse. Unlike those who had their feet solidly on the ground, they were said to float in the air. So it was fair, in a way, that as punishment the ground was permanently pulled out from under their feet, that they remained suspended a little above the floor.”
― Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
― Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
“The Universe is very, very big.
It also loves a paradox. For example, it has some extremely strict rules.
Rule number one: Nothing lasts forever.
Not you or your family or your house or your planet or the sun. It is an absolute rule. Therefore when someone says that their love will never die, it means that their love is not real, for everything that is real dies.
Rule number two: Everything lasts forever.”
― Craig Ferguson, Between the Bridge and the River
It also loves a paradox. For example, it has some extremely strict rules.
Rule number one: Nothing lasts forever.
Not you or your family or your house or your planet or the sun. It is an absolute rule. Therefore when someone says that their love will never die, it means that their love is not real, for everything that is real dies.
Rule number two: Everything lasts forever.”
― Craig Ferguson, Between the Bridge and the River
Indianapolis Readers
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— last activity Jan 23, 2012 07:47am
I just wanted to start a group for fiction and literature-lovers in the Indianapolis area... where we can perhaps choose two books a month for an onli...more
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